


every time, i see something new

by skvadern



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Tenderness, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skvadern/pseuds/skvadern
Summary: “I think I’m worried about him,” she whispers, even quieter than before – like it’s a terrible secret that nobody can know.Jon takes a nap.
Relationships: Agnes Montague/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay/Agnes Montague, Gerard Keay/Agnes Montague/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 34
Kudos: 210





	every time, i see something new

**Author's Note:**

> yet again i am soft for rare pairs. thanks as ever to eye horror for enabling the shit out of me, and to stacicity for the brilliant beta. this is just. its just some softness. enjoy  
> title from watch you sleep by girl in red

Gerry sags against the closed front door, sucking in a deep breath. Incense soaks into his nose – enough of a reminder of his childhood to feel like home, enough difference in the scent to feel like a home he actually wants to be in – and a little smile twitches at his lips. The heavy, weighted press of the day begins to slide from his shoulders, to settle on the doormat where it belongs.

He yanks off his boots, dumping them in the pile, and hangs up his coat. His jumper comes off as he walks down the hallway, past the kitchen and towards the living room. Agnes might not be a human nuclear furnace these days, but she still manages to heat their little house through, even in this icy weather. Good job Gerry’s always run cold, really.

“Agnes?” he calls as he drapes the jumper on the back of a chair. Agnes looks up from the sofa, turning sharply with a finger to her lips.

Gerry stops and blinks at her, the first niggling itch of anxiety piercing his calm. “Good?” he mouths – even if she can’t speak freely for whatever reason, they’ve got a couple of code-words she could use to alert him.

Thank whatever, though, Agnes just nods, smiling that particularly soft smile he loves most on her face. She keeps the finger against her lips, inclining her head towards the front of the sofa, the bit Gerry can’t see from here.

Still cautious – Agnes’ metric for ‘this is a problem’ isn’t always the same as his – Gerry edges round to the front of the sofa, to see-

“Is that the Archivist?” he hisses.

Agnes grins, teeth flashing. She doesn’t answer, but it’s obviously Jon Sims, curled on his side fully-clothed, clutching their whale-shaped cushion to his chest and letting out soft, whistling breaths. To all appearances, he’s dead asleep, his sharp face more relaxed than Gerry’s seen at any point during their acquaintance.

He turns his head slowly to meet Agnes’ dancing eyes. “What,” he asks flatly, and that makes her break out a delighted little grin. She takes her finger off her lips and returns it to curl around her steaming mug of tea. It smells like something floral today, pretty and almost sweet.

“He came over to talk to you,” she murmurs. “Something about the Stranger’s ritual, I didn’t know enough about it to answer his questions. I went to get him tea and when I came back he was like this.” She shrugs, eyes flickering down to where the Archivist sleeps, a little furrow between her brows.

Gerry moves to perch on the arm of the sofa, slinging an arm round Agnes’ shoulders. She leans into him easily, and the warmth radiating from her skin banishes the last of the chill from his bones. He drops a gentle kiss on top of her head, and follows her gaze down to where the Archivist breathes slowly.

“Did he seriously just pass out?” he asks, and Agnes nods.

“I’m not surprised,” she says quietly, “not with how tired he looked. Worn out.” She sighs, taking a sip of her tea. “He’s really not got the best survival instincts, has he?”

Gerry shrugs. “I mean, no, probably not. But what makes you say that?”

Agnes shoots him a  _ Don’t be obtuse _ look. “He fell asleep around me.”

That gets Gerry to pull away, turning so he can give her a proper stare. “And I’m guessing you took the first opportunity to horrifically torture him, right? Cause that’s you all over.”

Agnes glares at him, but there’s no real heat in it – a good thing too, considering who’s doing the glaring. “That’s not the point.”

“It sort of is, though,” Gerry argues. “Obviously the paranoid little bastard feels safe enough around you to show some vulnerability, and you standing guard over him while he naps isn’t really going to change his mind, is it?”

He gets a little huff for that, but Agnes’ eyes have returned to Jon’s still, sleeping face. “I think I’m worried about him,” she whispers, even quieter than before – like it’s a terrible secret that nobody can know. Gerry knows the feeling.

“Good job he’s safe and sound here for the afternoon, then,” he points out, and Agnes’ shoulders square a little as she processes that. For someone who hasn’t really engaged with other people - or her own personhood - for most of her life, Agnes has taken to the complications of being a person with calm determination.

“Mmm,” she agrees after a minute in quiet thought, then, “can you get me another cup?” She offers her mug, smiling that smug little smile that he loves so much.

“Of course,” he says, bowing gallantly to make that smile grow a little, and takes her mug to the kitchen, Jon’s soft not-quite-snores following him.

~~~~~

He’s very warm, so wonderfully warm it feels like his bones have been bathed in sunlight – warm and drifting slowly upwards from a deep and empty sleep. Every muscle is supremely comfortable, all the painful, wire-tight tension nothing but the vaguest memory. Each breath is filled with something smoky and subtle, and he tightens his hold on the soft, squishy bundle in his arms, pressing it comfortably against his chest.

Soft voices filter into his head from far away, and Jon can’t quite make out what they’re saying. He strains to hear a little more, the effort pulling him further up from that fuzzy, gentle thoughtlessness. The voices are familiar, he knows them, but he’s not quite sure where from-

Memory crashes down on him in a wave, and Jon sits bolt upright on Agnes Montague and Gerard Keay’s sofa, dropping the stuffed toy he’d apparently acquired at some point onto the floor. He scrambles to pick it up, feeling unaccountably guilty that he’d let it fall. When he’s placed it carefully back on the sofa, he takes a quick look around the room to make sure he wasn’t observed turfing the poor thing off its rightful place.

Thankfully, he’s alone, in a warm, cluttered sitting room, facing out onto a chaotic but richly green garden. The whole house is furnished in soft, clashing colours, rugs and throws and bright landscape paintings, knickknacks from charity shops and far-off countries dotting every surface. A huge, overstuffed bookcase that Jon approves of immensely.

It’s a very lived-in house, despite records showing they’d only bought it together a few years ago, after the Cult of the Lightless Flame collapsed and whatever partnership Gerard may or may not have had with Jon’s predecessor definitely ended. It feels disgustingly homey.

Which is probably why Jon had fallen asleep so easily on the soft, squishy sofa. Christ.

One of the currents of air drifting from the kitchen snags at his nose, laden with a rich, meaty scent, and Jon’s stomach growls.  _ Very  _ loudly, loud enough for him to flinch, and loud enough that the soft conversation in the kitchen stops. Jon freezes guiltily.

He hears Gerard ask Agnes to watch a pot, and then he sticks his head through the kitchen door. “Jon, hey. Have a good nap?”

Jon can feel his cheeks heat, and he’s grateful that they’re too dark for Gerard to notice. “Yes, ah, I’m very, very sorry to bother, I’ll be going-“

“The hell you will,” Gerard replies – not sharply, there’s friendliness in his voice. “Stay for dinner, at least, then you can ask whatever questions you came here with.”

“I couldn’t possibly-“ Jon hurries to say, but Gerard waves him down.

“Sims, I could hear your stomach from a room away. Stay – you’ll do your work better on a full stomach, right?”

Jon gives him a hard look, but Gerard doesn’t budge an inch.

“So is he staying or not?” floats from the kitchen. “If he is, you’ll have to share the garlic bread.”

“He is,” Gerard replies, calm eyes still fixed on Jon, daring him to argue. Jon seriously considers it for a moment, before giving into the inevitable.

“Fine,” he mutters, “but after we eat, I’ll have plenty of questions for you.”

Gerard shrugs. “That’s fine by me. So long as you eat something first.”

Somehow, Jon finds himself seated at a wonky-legged table on one of the household’s mismatched chairs, a bowl of spaghetti bolognese and a hunk of garlic bread in front of him. As good as it smells, as hungry as he is, he can’t help but hesitate.

Agnes, he notices, has a much smaller bowl than he or Gerard. When she catches him looking, she says, in her soft placid voice, “I’m still building up my portions.Considering I started from nothing, I’m doing quite well.”

Jon looks down, ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, and Agnes snorts. When she shrugs, the long auburn hair cascades off her shoulders, catching the light.

“I don’t care, Jon,” she says. “You’ll have to work harder than that to get on my nerves.”

“You have nerves?” Gerard butts in. “I thought you were entirely nerveless.” A moment later, there’s a soft impact from under the table, and he flinches slightly. Agnes’ smile is still serene, but there’s a wicked little glint in her eye that makes Jon shift slightly in his chair.

Both Gerard and Agnes have sworn up and down that she’s not whatever dangerous, burning monster the Cult of the Lightless Flame were trying to make of her – or at least, that she isn’t any longer. Jon can’t fully bring himself to believe that – he likes to think he’s learned some degree of caution – but he’s certainly not seen anything that would dispute it. Jude Perry certainly seemed betrayed by her former… friend? Fellow cultist? Leader? And Gerard, who as far as Jon knows destroys evil books and fights monsters for a living, smiles at her as fearlessly as any man in love.

The bolognese is delicious. Jon says as much, out of the reflexes his grandmother drilled into him, and Gerard and Agnes trade pleased smiles past his head. He dips his eyes back to the bowl again, cheeks flaring with heat. It must be the warmth of the house – that must have been why he’d fallen asleep as well. Jon’s always been like a cat with warmth.

They eat quietly, but as far as Jon notices, the silence is blessedly comfortable. Between the heat, the nap and how weirdly easy it is to be around these two maybe-once-avatars, the tension that normally cords every muscle has loosened more than he can remember feeling in years. It’s disturbing, really.

It’s a relief when they’re done, Agnes clearing up the plates while Gerard leans back in his chair and kicks his legs out under the table. “So,” he says, “you had questions?”

“I did,” Jon replies, then pauses as Agnes walks by him to pick up his plate. Warmth pours from her in waves, where her bare arm comes inches from Jon’s, and he catches a hint of woodsmoke as she pulls away.

When he looks back to Gerard, the man has one pierced eyebrow raised and a frankly unreasonable smirk tugging at his lips. “In your own time,” he says, and Jon glares at him, certain he’s being mocked.

Gerard just smiles back, damnably serene, and crosses his arms comfortably over his chest. Jon manages to avert his eyes from the obvious swell of Gerard’s biceps, stretching the sleeves of some band shirt or other, but it’s a near thing.

He launches into his first question about Gertrude’s plans for the Unknowing, his eyes fixed resolutely on the unvarnished table. The end of the world is coming, and whatever fascinates him so much about these two isn’t going to be an issue. It isn’t. He’s fine.

When he leaves, he swears he can feel Agnes and Gerard’s gazes follow him out of the gate and down the road. Unlike the near-constant pressure of eyes on the back of his head that he feels everywhere he goes these days, it’s actually pleasant. 


End file.
